FDBusiness.com

Danish Crown is going to build a position for itself as the world’s leading producer of sustainable meat. This will be achieved by halving the company’s climate footprint per kilogramme of pork by 2030, the vision being a completely climate-neutral value chain by 2050.

According to climate scientists worldwide, meat is a big challenge for the earth’s well-being, the climate and living conditions for future generations. This is a fundamental challenge for all meat producers, and Danish Crown and Danish Crown’s owners – Danish farmers – are now going to intensify their commitment to making the meat they produce more sustainable.

“We believe that we’re going to see a huge market for sustainable meat in future. We want to capture this market and create a brand as the most sustainable producer of meat-based food products. We have a strong starting point, as our Danish owners are already leading the way on very many parameters, and this is something that we must now build on,”  says Jais Valeur, Group CEO of Danish Crown.

Jais Valeur.

By 2030, Danish Crown will have reduced its emissions of greenhouse gases for each kilogramme of pork it produces from farm to fork by at least 50 per cent compared to 2005. Even before the end of 2019, 90 per cent of the pigs supplied to Danish Crown’s Danish abattoirs will come from sustainability-certified farmers, and the vision is for all meat from Danish Crown to be climate-neutral by 2050, all the way from farm to fork.

Danish Crown has commissioned researchers to calculate and document developments since 2005. The conclusion is that Danish farmers have reduced the climate impact of producing one kilogramme of pork by 25 per cent between 2005 and 2016, of which agriculture accounts for 18 per cent.

“Pork has unjustifiably been in the firing line for the climate impact. We’re going to change this, because we now know that we could have been talking about sustainability from as early as the mid-2000s. We cannot turn back the clock, but the results are there for all to see, and what we’re going to do is launch a concept which we, as well as our customers can communicate, and which is going to win the support of consumers, because at the end of the day, it’s the choices being made by consumers that will drive the transition,” says Jais Valeur.

The Danish Crown group is currently setting up a number of cross-organisational projects focusing on everything from energy and water consumption, to packaging and transport solutions. The aim is to define goals in all these areas and to establish a number of partnerships which will enable Danish Crown to identify new solutions in cooperation with both researchers and other companies in the industry.

Danish Crown has not yet finalised its climate goals for beef and veal, but they will be closely aligned with the goals being set for Danish dairy production and Danish Crown’s sustainability certification for pork. However, the long-term vision of climate neutrality covers all the group’s activities.